La Jetée (1962)
Directed by Chris Marker

Film Review

La Jetée is the film that first brought the avant-garde French filmmaker Chris Marker to the attention of an international audience.  It is a film like no other, consisting almost entirely of black and white still photographs accompanied by a compelling voiceover narration (the film exists in two versions, one French, the other English).  In style and impact, it bears a striking similarity to Alain Resnais's earlier documentary short on the Nazi Holocaust, Nuit et brouillard (1955) - perhaps not surprisingly as Marker worked on this film, having belonged to the same group of filmmakers as Resnais, the so-called Left Bank Movement, a more politically conscious contemporary of the French New Wave.  More radical and willing to experiment than their counterparts in the Nouvelle Vague, Marker and his cohorts (who included Agnès Varda, Marguerite Duras and Jacques Demy, as well as Resnais) saw cinema as an art form that offered limitless possibilities and devoted much of their time and energies to overcoming its limiting conventions.  La Jetée is among Marker's most stylish and innovative films, although even this would be surpassed by some of the director's subsequent achievements, most notably Sans soleil (1983), his justly celebrated masterpiece.

Despite its modest 28 minute run-time, La Jetée can hardly fail to leave a lasting impression on anyone who watches it.  Its photomontage format may be unusual but it is a film that exerts an extraordinarily tight grip on its spectator.  It is not just a piece of science-fiction (a genre that is quasi-non-existent in French cinema).  It is a film that reminds us of the importance of memories, how they shape our lives and make us who we are.  We exist only as a muddled echo of our past experiences, and Marker's compelling short film assures us that without memory we are nothing, just an empty bubble of consciousness floating in eternity.  Although La Jetée has inspired several subsequent films - in particular Mamoru Oshii's The Red Spectacles (1987) and Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (1995) - it remains a startling cinematic one-off, a testament to Chris Marker's ingenuity and determination to defy convention and explore the untapped artististic possibilities of film.

Film Synopsis

The world lies in ruins in the aftermath of a nuclear war.  A team of scientists realise that the only way to save humanity from extinction is to send someone into the past or the future to ask for help.  After a number of failed experiments, the scientists find one such man.  His strong recollection of a childhood experience at Orly Airport makes him the ideal subject.